We have had a fantastic start to term with lots of fun-filled learning taking place in Room 2. This term, our English program is centred around Australian animals and stories and we look forward to our visit to the Perth Zoo in Week Four.

In Week One, we once again visited the school garden with Mrs Fourie. We went on the hunt for broad beans in the gardens and discovered how to peel them, and in turn we ate them. Everyone tried the beans and most students enjoyed them as they were big and juicy! Mrs Fourie then talked to us about what plants need to grow and we fertilised some of the plants to help them grow. We look forward to seeing how the plants have grown next fortnight.

During week one, lots of our learning activities were focussed around the number 100 as part of our preparation for our 100th day of school celebrations. We focussed on counting to 100 and skip counting by 10s to 100 to help us to remember the decade numerals. We made crowns with 100 dots for our 100th day of school party, made treat bags which had 10 lots of 10 objects and created a writing and craft based on what we think we would be like when we are 100. Please pop in and have a look at the beautiful portraits and writing that the students have created.

On Tuesday 24th July, we had a 100th day of school party. The students looked amazing dressed up in their 100 years old outfits and Deb and I were delighted by the efforts made by parents and students – so thank you to your contribution to our special day. On this day we continued our focus on the number 100 and did lots of fun things such as counting how many times we could do numerous activities/exercises in 100 seconds, sharing with our friends about what we will do when we are 100 years old, going on a 100 year old parade in the nature playground, creating a paper chain with 100 links and much more.

In week 2 in Mathematics, we were learning about the difference between 2D and 3D shapes. We have also been identifying features of shapes, naming these shapes and trying to find them within the classroom and nature playground. Perhaps you could ask your child to see if they can find a cylinder, cone, cube or sphere around the house?

On Friday of week 2, we also cooked pumpkin scones as a conclusion to our reading of the story, Possum Magic, by Mem Fox. The students loved making the scones – and I am delighted to say that we had a 100% success rate with students eating them! Well done to our Room 2 Masterchefs.

Finally, in English, we have commenced using dotted thirds paper for our writing. I have been delighted to see students carefully positioning their letters when writing – which is fantastic to see. We have been working really hard to read and write simple sentences. When writing sentences, we are working to ensure that we accurately use capital letters and full stops, include a main idea and have spaces between words. We are also focussing on making our sentences exciting by including detail and adjectives. Furthermore, we are further developing our knowledge of letters and sounds and many students are starting to use diagraphs (two letters that make one sound eg. sh for ship) in their writing. I am seeing great progress in student’s writing ability and students should be proud of their progress in this area.

Finally, my apologies once again for no photos for this post for now. We have had a change to the website size limits of photos and we are in the process of changing how photos are uploaded to overcome this. I am hoping that I can upload some more in the next few days as I have some AMAZING pictures of our 100 days of school outfits and our classroom learning.